Imperial Daughter
by DJ Caligula
Summary: When Kitrin is transported from Earth to Yavin IV through a mysterious alien portal, she falls into the hands of the Emperor, who has plans for her and newfound abilities. Set after ANH, w/ Palpatine, Vader, Veers & Luke. Formerly DAUGHTER OF THE EMPIRE
1. Chapter 1

This is dedicated to ChristineX, Savivi and NorthwestMarmot for all their help in putting this story together. Thanks guys!

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**Imperial Daughter**

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::Part One::

I.

Honduras, 2019

In her wildest dreams, Kitrin never thought she would end up working I.T. at a museum of antiquities in San Dióscoro, but as she pulled another _Cerveza Imperial_ out of the fridge, things didn't seem as bad as they had earlier. Sure, her upbringing in Montana hadn't prepared her for the weather; the museum was in a seedy part of town and was ordinarily guarded by two guys with Kalashnikovs; and the city itself, situated about halfway between Tegus and Choluteca, seemed far more quaintly attractive in the pictures on the Lonely Planet website then it did in real life. At least she liked _baleadas _and plantains, the beer was cheap, and most importantly, no one cared if she drank while she worked after hours.

But then the lights in the museum flickered and dimmed.

"What was that?" Kitrin asked herself uneasily. The new president of Honduras had promised, with much fanfare, that the Laguna Blanca nuclear power plant—only 18 kilometers to the east of here—would provide endless electricity for the once struggling country. But there had been rumors, that the storage sites overflowed with toxic waste and there were fissures in the plant itself…

Hoping that the main computer wouldn't be affected, Kitrin rushed out of the kitchen area, past the moldering Mayan and Lencan artifacts, and into the main office. She heaved a sigh of relief when she saw the computers were still up and running—Laguna Blanca or not, she was glad that the acting director had made space in the budget for the uninterruptable power-supply units she'd wanted. The diagnostics were almost done. She would shut down the computers when she was finished.

"Kitrin? Are you there?"

Kitrin started—then she realized the voice had emerged from her own laptop. She leaned closer. "Grandpa? Is that you?"

"Yes, love, it's me." When she pulled up the chat program and his webcam, she saw him relaxing in front of his own computer. She saw the big forehead, the white hair, the casual yet expensive clothes, and the smug expression. _Same old, same old,_ she thought, once again beginning to feel defensive and paranoid. No doubt he could see her equally well, with the black Louise Brooks bob and tattooed arms. "Are you at the museum? What are you doing there this late?"

"Working," said Kitrin shortly. "I can concentrate better once everyone goes home."

"I'm sure you can," said her grandfather. "I'm sure it's very relaxing. Is that a beer I see you holding? And a cigarette?"

She knew he wasn't trying to piss her off, but Kitrin felt her face turning red. "Yes, it is! It's Honduras, Grandpa. No one cares about that here. It's not San Francisco."

"You don't have to get angry, Kitrin." Isaac Lang chuckled. "It takes me back to when I was a kid in the '80s, working on software in my friend Derek's garage. We could have snorted coke and no one would have cared, as long as we got the work done. Things really have changed, haven't they?"

_Yeah, now you're stinking rich_, thought Kitrin. "Sure, yeah. Hey, did Shannon get the doll?"

"The doll?" Isaac looked blank.

"Yes! The doll. The one I sent for her birthday!" Kitrin felt a sudden burst of panic that it might have gotten lost in the mail somehow. She had bought it from a Xicaque woman in the market a month ago, and there was something about it that was so simple and cute that she'd fallen in love with it immediately. A mother doll in pink was clasping a baby doll in white, and there were flowers picked out in orange and blue along the hem of the mother's robe. Shannon's favorite color was pink. She was still into princesses and stuff like that. It wasn't Barbie, but Kitrin hoped she would like it.

"Oh the doll!" Her grandfather made an almost dismissive gesture. "Yes, she loves it. She got a lot of gifts for her birthday, but she seems to like your gift the best of all. She even takes it to bed with her at night, and believe me, it's not as if she doesn't have lots of other toys to choose from."

As with most things her grandfather said, Kitrin couldn't tell if he was insulting her or not. To hell with him; she was just happy that her little cousin liked her gift. "Can I speak to her?"

"Oh, I'm afraid not. She's at school."

She started first grade this year, Kitrin knew. It was strange to think that Shannon was already six. "Well, ah, tell her I hope she had a great birthday, and that I wish I could have been there."

"Of course." Her grandfather leaned forward, with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Kitrin, you know that job is still yours, if you want it. If you moved back to San Francisco, you could see Shannon as often as you like. Just think how happy that would make her. You know, she talks about you all the time."

Oh God, this was just the crap she was dreading. Kitrin smiled back tightly. "Thanks for the offer. Look, Grandpa, it was great talking to you, but I have to go."

"Now really, Kitrin, I was going to ask—"

"Sorry, stuff to do! I'll catch you later!"

Kitrin clicked off the chat window and shut her laptop, shaking. Jesus, that bastard! No wonder she'd moved so far away. It was a good thing she didn't take that job at Lang Technologies, or she'd be in jail for attempted murder or something. She ground out her cigarette in the nearest ashtray.

She hoped Shannon was okay. Even though they weren't sisters, Kitrin often felt that they were. Shannon's dad—Kitrin's uncle—was on a tour of duty overseas, and while it technically made sense that he would leave his daughter with his own father to take care of in his absence, it wasn't as if Isaac Lang had the greatest track record as a parent.

After all, look at how her own mother had turned out.

She sighed. God, she needed another beer.

She started back to the kitchen area, ducking around the pillar recently added to the not particularly impressive museum collection. It was an odd little thing, found at a recent dig in the Cacaulapa Valley—it was a pillar of white gneiss, heavily veined with quartz, surmounted by carvings that vaguely looked like a ring on top of an egg. There were several characters carved into it that might have been hieroglyphs, except they were so worn it was hard to tell what they were supposed to be. It didn't look Mayan, but it was extremely old, whatever it was. There had been a lot of controversy over the piece being admitted into the museum in the first place; the assistant director (among others) thought it likely to be a hoax, but was overruled by the acting director, a pompous and somewhat dim-witted guy who was the cousin of the mayor of San Dióscoro, and who correspondingly liked to throw his weight around.

Imagining the outrage in the jowly face of the acting director, she touched the top of the egg for good luck, as always relishing the feel of the cool stone beneath her fingers. Yet as she did so, the lights dimmed again.

One brown-out might have been excusable… but two? In less than ten minutes? _I have a bad feeling about this_, she thought.

The lights went out.

She felt vibrations beneath her feet, the whole building rumbling as if the earth shook, the figurines and artifacts rattling in their cases. Perhaps it was an earthquake. But somehow, Kitrin didn't think so. Her skin grew cold.

_Whatever happened, _she thought inanely_, the beer's going to get warm now-_

Part of her brain told her that she should run back into the office, to look toward Laguna Blanca. But instead, she was transfixed by what she saw right in front of her.

Seconds before, she had seen nothing but air and the dingy interior of the museum, but all of a sudden, above the pillar shimmered a glowing, pulsating circle of rainbow light. It looked just like pictures of the Ring Nebula, and it was the most beautiful and frightening thing Kitrin had ever seen. The outward edges crackled and bled out, like electricity, but the center was the milky blue of a blind cornea. But it seemed strangely _aware_—it seemed to stare at her, flickering, almost blinking like a curious eye.

Horrified but hypnotized, she stepped closer. She moved toward it until she felt she could part the blue veil of light with her hands, to see what lay beyond.

The next thing she knew, she felt herself being pulled through, with the air screaming past her ears, as if she were falling off the very edge of the world. Everything spun around her. Her stomach twisted into knots, and she felt an indescribable cold—

And then, blackness.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Kitrin woke up in a mud puddle, dizzy, nauseated, with her head pounding as if she'd just drunk an entire bottle of tequila.

She staggered up, groaning. As soon as she could focus, she found herself gaping in amazement. She was no longer in the museum, or even in the city. She was surrounded by heavily canopied rain forest on three sides, almost identical to what could be found only a few miles outside San Dióscoro, while behind her was a steep mossy overhang. Beside her was a pillar similar to the one back in the museum.

She stared at it, terrified. What the hell had happened? Was she dreaming?

Kitrin grabbed the pillar. Had her touch triggered it? That couldn't be… she'd touched the thing before. Had it been something to do with Laguna Blanca? Had the whole nuclear power plant melted down like Chernobyl? Had she really been sucked through that eye, or that wormhole, or whatever the hell it was… or was she hallucinating?

Frantically, she examined the wall behind her. There seemed to be eroded carvings on it, but they were too worn to figure out what they could be. As she groped the stone, a strange three-eyed red insect skittered out, waving iridescent antennae. Kitrin shrieked, stumbling a few steps backward.

Where _was _she?

"You'll be okay, Kitrin," she told herself, trying to breathe slowly and calmly as she wiped off her shaking fingers on her shorts. She looked down at herself. She was still wearing the same khaki cargo shorts and white tank top that she'd worn earlier, except the outfit was rather the worse for wear because of the mud. At least she had on hiking boots and heavy socks, so her feet were well protected, if nothing else. She went through her pockets. There was her wallet, with a few Honduran _lempira_ notes and _centavos_, her credit cards, various forms of ID, her favorite picture of Shannon, and one of her mother and grandfather, taken twenty years ago, before either of them had become too fucked up (or so she liked to think).

She also had a cigarette lighter, her keys, her penknife, and her mobile. She turned it on, and frowned at the lack of reception.

Kitrin looked around helplessly. She had no idea where she was, or how she'd gotten here… but she couldn't just stay here, or hope to wake up. The only thing she could do was hike back to civilization. It was a good thing her Spanish was decent, she told herself grimly, or else why would she have come to Honduras in the first place?

She set off randomly, hoping the trees would clear at some point so she could get a better sense of where she was.

But as she struggled through the undergrowth, slapping at the insects, Kitrin couldn't shake the eerie feeling she had about this place. It looked so much like the jungles of Honduras, which she was familiar enough with, having hiked near the ruins of Copan and through the Pico Bonito national park. But there was something _off_ about it all. Birds cooed in the upper reaches of the canopy, but they weren't macaws or jacamars or quetzals; they were large and golden, with long swan-like necks and vaguely pterodactyl-shaped bodies. Somewhere off in the near distance, she heard the grunting and whuffling of something that might have been a water buffalo. Since when were wild water buffalo found in Central America? She saw the occasional glimpse of something that might have been a monkey, scampering on a far-off branch, but it was… blue?

As the blue creature approached her more closely, Kitrin squinted at it, wondering just what it was. It was definitely simian, but it had three-fingered hands, and the most outlandish blue and yellow striped fur. It was definitely not pleased to see her, since it began jumping up and down, screeching and growling.

"Hey, calm down," said Kitrin with her hands up. "I'm leaving—really!"

The blue monkey didn't believe her, apparently, because the next thing she knew, she was ducking missiles of what seemed to be rotten fruit. Glad it wasn't dung, Kitrin still made all haste to move along as quickly as possible, trying not to trip on any roots as she did so. The last thing she needed now was a twisted ankle.

"Have I travelled back in time?" she asked herself aloud, when she was finally sure she left the blue monkey thing far behind. Was she back in the early Cenozoic? What else could explain the unearthly feeling she had? It didn't feel like the twenty-first century, that was for certain. Or was she just losing her mind?

Just as she was thinking this, the forest abruptly ended. She found herself walking out of the shelter of the trees, onto the edge of an escarpment. There was a valley below, with jungle spreading out as far as the eye could see. Not so different from the foothills of Honduras. But above her, in the beautiful blue sky, hung a huge striated gas planet—almost like Jupiter—but the color of blood.

Her body felt boneless. She fell to her knees, stunned. For a moment she thought she would really faint.

"Oh my God," she whispered. "I'm insane. That's it. I've gone fucking crazy."

She didn't know how long she stood there, trembling. It took all her will not to curl up into a fetal position and start whimpering. But she did close her eyes and wish to be home, with all her might. Yet when she opened her eyes again, the splendidly lush alien world still remained before her, unchanged. A wave of absolute terror washed over her.

The golden birds she had seen earlier didn't seem concerned, though. They continued to fly serenely across the sky, past the vast scarlet hemispheres of the gas giant, singing at each other.

As nightmarish as this all was, Kitrin watched the birds for the longest time. In a way, they were oddly reassuring.

This couldn't be a hallucination, she thought, once the panic had eventually subsided. Even at her most high, or at her most amped, she'd never had a hallucination that was this… thorough. How could she have imagined a world this complete? Maybe she was in a coma? But why would she have imagined herself into the middle of a Clark Ashton Smith story, or into an old _Outer Limits_ episode? The mind was a strange thing, though. For all she knew, her mother, grandfather and Shannon were standing around her hospital bed, talking to her and holding her hand.

But that was really not a useful hypothesis, she thought. She was sweating and hungry and sore all over. Telling herself she wasn't really hungry and sore wasn't going to do any good. For whatever reason, this world was being forced on her; and it was beginning to look as if she couldn't wish it away. She was going to have to treat it as if it were real. Unfortunately.

_Are there any people here?_ she wondered. She wasn't having any trouble breathing. If there were inhabitants, would they be humans, or would they be grays or little green men or even floating sentient beings of light? She had no idea.

If no people… or humanoids… or whomever… showed up, then she was really going to have to start thinking about shelter. And food. At least she now knew there was fruit back within the trees. And perhaps she could stay by that mossy overhang back by the pillar…

She was not looking forward to this though. She closed her eyes, and prayed fervently to every deity she could think of to send someone to help her.

When she opened her eyes again, she gasped. God must have been listening, because descending from the sky into the valley was a spaceship. It wasn't a saucer-shaped UFO, but rather an attractive and very futuristic little thing with three wings, like an inverted Y. It was hard to tell at this distance, but the scale of it seemed quite human. As it prepared to land, it raised and retracted its lower wings, and disappeared into the trees.

It seemed that help had arrived at last.

If not, well…Kitrin hoped it would be over quickly. She didn't think she'd like being the subject of alien experiments, she thought with a grim smile.


	2. Chapter 2

II.

As Kitrin scrambled down the escarpment, she tried not to dwell on the freakishness of her current situation. It was easier to think of how to zig-zag down the slope, avoiding roots, leaning on branches for support, and making sure that her footing was secure. She had done this so often back in Montana that there was a comforting familiarity to it all. Better to just concentrate on the dirt, the ferns, and the trees, and not think about where she was… or what she was looking for.

In a way, it was easier to tell herself it was all a dream, and she would wake up soon. If she thought about it too much, then she would go stark, staring mad, and what use would she be then? She'd be a gibbering wreck like one of H.P. Lovecraft's characters, after facing down some unimaginable horror…

Her stomach knotted, and she felt the urge to vomit. Oh, she really shouldn't be thinking of Lovecraft or Cthulhu right now. She hoped there were people in that spaceship, not gigantic tentacled aliens that would eat her after sucking out her soul. _Don't be silly, _she told herself as she braced herself against a nearby palm. _That was a good-looking ship you saw. Do you really think Yog Sothoth or any of the Elder Gods are going to be flying around in something like that?_ _Cheer up! There will be nice future people there to help you, like in…_

Kitrin's mind went blank at that. She found herself wishing she'd read more science fiction growing up. Her mom was into writing long fantasy epics with fancy elves and suchlike, and had an aversion to anything even remotely modern. As a result, when Kitrin herself wasn't reading classic horror, she preferred reading actual science books by Jared Diamond and Brian Cox, which her grandfather would send her for Christmas. She tried to picture an alien that wasn't Cthulhu or a guy in a funny latex mask, and her imagination failed her.

Kitrin reached the forest floor without any mishap, and trudged on for a while before she reached a stream. It was shallow enough, but unfortunately it flowed at the bottom of a deep wash, which was overhung with more ferns, vines and strange flowers that looked like the mouths of reptiles. It was quite beautiful, in its way, but incredibly inconvenient. Unless she wanted to climb down the steep wet sides of the channel and ford the stream, the only way to cross was by a fallen tree that was half overgrown with moss and mushrooms.

Gritting her teeth—she really didn't like heights—Kitrin began to laboriously crawl across the log. At least it was relatively wide, although looking down at the rushing water below made her feel dizzy and sick. But she had made it halfway across the stream when she heard a strange mechanical whine in the distance. It sounded like a thousand robotic bees, and it was getting louder with every second.

Puzzled, Kitrin raised herself to her knees to get a better view. What she saw made her gasp. Coming directly towards her was a long-nosed bike speeding through the air, driven by a man in a white helmet. It would be upon her in an instant. She tried to duck out of the way, but her knees slipped. She tried to grasp something, but the wood was so wet and crumbling she couldn't make a steady purchase. Her hands flailed at nothing—

And she found herself falling through the air, screaming—

After what seemed like an eternity, she at last crashed into the stream. She heard a sickening crack. For a moment, she felt nothing but shock and nausea—then an unbearable pain began stabbing through her left leg. She heard herself crying for help, but got no reply save the rushing of water past her ears and the distant call of birds. The water was cool, and it bathed her face. It was almost a salve against the agony, which seemed to worsen with every second.

She thought she might have heard someone shouting at her, but consciousness was fast slipping away, and within moments she drifted gratefully into oblivion.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

She woke up, curiously enough, in bed.

_So I was right,_ Kitrin thought sleepily. _It was all a dream._ She went over the rainbow, and now she was back in Kansas. _You were there… and you… and you…_ She tried to stretch and roll on her side, but her leg felt very stiff and bound. What had happened to it?

She opened her eyes. Her clothes were gone, replaced by a white hospital gown made of a papery acrylic-like substance. Her lower left leg was in a splint, surrounded by packs of some unrecognizable bluish goo. Her surroundings were blindingly white, but she barely registered them, as standing directly above her was a robot. Its face was divided between a pair of glowing eyes and a mouth shaped like a metal oxygen mask, with tubes winding about its arms like snakes.

Kitrin's mouth opened, and she tried to scream. But she was either too weak, or drugged, or both. A pathetic mewling rasp emerged from her throat, like she was some kind of stoned kitten.

The robot said… something… to her, while moving one of its articulated arms, as if gesturing for emphasis. It had a surprisingly pleasant male human voice, like an airline attendant giving instructions before take-off, and it sounded as if it were trying to say something calming. _Probably don't move or you'll hurt yourself again,_ she thought. Well, at least she didn't hurt now, and there was clearly some attempt being made to patch her up. Where the hell was she?

"I don't understand you," she said, wetting her lips. Good lord, she sounded hoarse. It was as if she hadn't spoken in days—maybe she hadn't. She had no idea how long she had been out, where she had been taken, and what drugs had been given her to fix up her leg. "Do you speak English, Mr. Robot? _¿Me excusa Señor Robot, tú habla inglés?"_

The robot said something again. Then it pulled out a syringe from a nearby table and injected her. She opened her mouth to object, but found that she couldn't move. She drifted off very pleasantly to sleep…

When she woke up again, she saw there was an actual human male standing with Señor Robot at her bedside.

At the sight of the first human face she'd seen since she'd chatted with her grandfather, Kitrin felt weak with relief. _Thank God he's not Cthulhu!_ she thought, although, on second glance, there was nothing particularly reassuring about this man standing before her. He was white, somewhere in his thirties, and he wore a high-necked black uniform that was strangely old-fashioned—and, truth be told, rather sinister—next to the antiseptic surroundings. A plastic badge that best resembled four red and blue Chiclets was pinned to the left side of his double-breasted tunic. He also wore a strange cap, a belt with a big shiny buckle, some kind of weapon in a holster, and….jodhpurs? They wore jodhpurs in the future? What, were they big into horse riding around these parts? She felt the urge to giggle, although that was probably a side effect of the drug.

But for all the quaintness of his costume, this man had an incredibly unfriendly-looking face, with a pasty complexion and watery eyes that bulged like a frog's. His posture was also very stiff, as he stood with his shoulders squared, and his arms behind his back. He rather reminded Kitrin of her old high school principal. _That guy was such a dick_, she thought. _And man, did he ever need to get laid…_

But that was neither here nor there. "Hello," said Kitrin with a big smile and a wave. "Thank you for fixing my leg."

Captain Unfriendly looked slightly incredulous. He barked something at her, and when she stared at him dumbly, he spoke again, louder, pointing at her with one black-gloved hand. His voice was annoyingly nasal and high-pitched, and the language he was speaking, although at first as seemingly impenetrable as Swahili, occasionally had a tantalizing familiarity to it, like he was speaking Plattdeutsch or a heavily accented Chaucerian Middle English. It made her wish she'd taken some linguistics classes when she was at college.

"I'm sorry," said Kitrin, "but I can't understand you. I guess you don't speak English. Or Spanish. Say, where am I?"

Unfriendly leaned closer, narrowed his eyes and said something that was possibly even more unfriendly. He was definitely threatening her. _Jesus, what an asshole, _she thought indignantly._ Can't he tell I have no idea what he's saying?_

But Kitrin, trying to hide her rising irritation, gave him her most charming smile, even though she knew that charm was not really her strong suit. She also gave her best "me no speak your language" gestures. "I'm sorry, mister, but I really don't know what you're saying. I guess I'm too far in the future to be able to find an American consulate, right?

"By the way, my name's Kitrin," she continued. She poked her chest. "Kitrin." She pointed at him. "And you are?"

Unfriendly didn't answer. He just glared at her as if she were personally sent to make his life hell. He whirled on his heel and punched a button that caused the recessed door on the other side of the room to fly up, which made Kitrin gasp a little. Unfriendly shot her an odd look. Then he said something to two helmeted men—or robots, it was hard to tell—in all-over white armor who were stationed guarding the threshold of her room. One of them spoke into his wrist, and the door whooshed shut again, just as suddenly as before.

Curiouser and curiouser. It seemed that these strange future people who had fixed her up were also holding her prisoner. Why? Kitrin asked herself. Did she really look like a hunted felon, or a terrorist, or whatever? God knows. Maybe it was the tattoos…

Kitrin lay back on the bed, staring at the lights, buttons and consoles about the room, thinking she should find it more interesting were it not for the fact that she was suddenly ravenous. As if sensing this, Señor Robot came towards her with a plastic spoon and a round plastic plate dripping with the most disgusting-looking food she had ever seen. It was reconstituted goo, colorless, tasteless and with the texture of watered-down paste, accompanied by some kind of gray-blue drink that tasted like muddy water mixed with chalk. She was ready to spit it out, but the robot was very insistent. It even hovered, as if concerned, clearly waiting for her to finish.

_It's sad_, Kitrin thought as she managed to swallow the last drop of the drink, _that this robot has been treating me better than the one human I've seen in this whole crazy place._

She fell into a light, restless sleep, until she was roused again by the ever charming Captain Unfriendly. This time he was accompanied by another robot, of a different type than Señor Robot. This one was sleeker, more humanistic, plated with a silvery-gold metal and with more intricately designed limbs—the entire effect was almost art deco. Kitrin squinted at the robot. It actually reminded her of Robot-Maria from _Metropolis_, one of her grandfather's favorite movies. How odd…

As she was mulling this over, Robot-Maria greeted her with a prim, high-pitched, androgynous voice. It immediately switched to another language different from the one used by Unfriendly and Señor Robot. Was it some kind of translator?

Hoping it was, Kitrin gamely did her best to communicate. She tried English, Spanish, French, German and even a smattering of Chinese she'd picked up over the years. She even started miming out her situation like a silent movie actor, but in the end had no luck whatsoever. After about ten minutes of going around in linguistic circles, Unfriendly snapped at the second robot, who threw its hands in the air helplessly. He then stared murderously at Kitrin, as if he'd like to see her guts as garters. He stalked out again, followed by Robot-Maria, who seemed flustered… indeed, almost embarrassed.

Señor Robot then said something apologetic to Kitrin, and made his own exit.

Alone at last, Kitrin stared at the ceiling. So, there were no tentacled monsters here. But the impersonal environment and the utter inability to communicate was, in its own way, just as soul-destroying. What _was_ this horrible place? Would she ever see home again? What would Shannon think of her disappearance? And Mom and her grandfather?

Despite herself, Kitrin started crying.

She lay there, for God knows how long, with tears running down her face. When she'd cried herself out, she wiped her nose on the sheet, hiccuping several times. Lying there quietly, she could hear the distant hum of activity, the walls and florescent lights vibrating slightly, the clatter of footsteps coming from what seemed to be miles away.

Was she on a military base somewhere? Captain Unfriendly's behavior reminded her a little of her mother's half-brother, David, an army lieutenant. Of course, Uncle David wasn't that much of a prick. But perhaps she'd landed in some high-security area. Hell, if she were back home and she'd popped up in the middle of a military base without any explanation of how she'd got there, she'd be in lock-up too. Maybe they even thought she was a spy. They were probably going through her things right now, because she couldn't see her clothes or wallet anywhere in the room.

Suddenly she heard voices. Confused, for a minute she looked around wildly. Then she realized the sound was emerging from a small ventilation shaft in the ceiling, to the left of her bed. One of the voices was Señor Robot. The other was a male voice she'd never heard before.

The man spoke for a while—perhaps he was another patient, describing symptoms—but Kitrin decided she quite liked listening to him. He sounded entirely different from Captain Unfriendly, in that he had a cool, well-modulated baritone. He actually sounded quite elegant, although for all she knew he could have been discussing the consistency of his stool.

_Good grief, _she thought,_ there's not enough to do in this place if I'm thrilled to hear someone else's voice_. But it was strangely reassuring, much in the same way as when she emerged from the jungle and saw the birds flying across the sky. She tried to imagine what the man looked like. For some reason, she found herself picturing some distinguished middle-aged English actor, perhaps someone like Rupert Friend.

_Love, you're romanticizing again_. She could just hear her grandfather saying that. She felt a pang. As much as he pissed her off most of the time, the idea of never seeing him again almost physically hurt.

And Shannon. Jesus, poor Shannon—

No, she wouldn't start crying again. She couldn't. She'd been through shit before—she could take this. Whatever _this_ happened to be. She took several deep breaths, closed her eyes, pressed her hands against her nose and mouth and counted until fifty. She tried to think calming thoughts. She had to be strong. She had to be, or…

"Oh God," Kitrin said aloud, her voice echoing in the empty room. "What's going to happen to me?"

She received no answer. The voice from the other room had fallen silent.


	3. Chapter 3

Thanks for the reviews, everyone. I also wanted to thank ChristineX and Savivi for betaing this fic-- it wouldn't be the same without you!

***

III.

Later, when the lights were dimmed—since there seemed to be no night or day here—Kitrin slept very poorly.

She dreamed that she stood in the second floor of her grandfather's house, an old Art Deco-style mansion in the Pacific Heights neighborhood in San Francisco. It was a beautiful house, filled with the latest gadgets alongside Bauhaus antiques and framed German Expressionist film posters, but now it was bare and cold, with a freezing wind blowing about her as if she stood on top of a mountain. Downstairs, she heard knocking on the front door. She was about to go to answer it, but she froze in front of a mirror—seemingly the only furnishing left.

_Shannon!_ she cried out.

She pressed her hand against the mirror's surface, but all she felt was glass. There was Shannon, with her long straight brown hair, freckles scattered across a heart-shaped face, and her usual shy, almost embarrassed half-smile. The image of her flickered within the mirror, as her cousin continued to look at her anxiously; it was as if she looked into a TV set.

_Don't open the door,_ said Shannon, staring at her. _You shouldn't let strangers in, Kit Kit. That's what Daddy always says._

The knocking continued. It had become very insistent—indeed, quite aggravating. She _had _to know what it was. Kitrin could barely wait another minute.

_But I need to see who it is,_ she replied. _You understand—it might be someone who can help me! _

Shannon looked as skeptical as only a six-year-old could. _But it could be really bad. They could hurt you, Kit, and that would suck. I'd never see you again._

_Don't say 'suck,' Shannon, _Kitrin replied, purely out of habit. _No, I just…want to see who it is. I promise I won't open the door._

_Do you promise? _Shannon answered sternly. _Honest Injun? Do you swear on a stack of Bibles?_

_I swear on a stack of Bibles, with a cherry on top, that I won't open the door_, said Kitrin. _Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye_.

_Okay,_ said Shannon reluctantly. _But remember, don't let anyone in!_

_I won't,_ Kitrin promised.

She blinked—and the mirror was no longer there. But the knocking had become even louder. Who on earth could be looking for her?

As mansions went, her grandfather's house was not that large, but somehow, in this dream, it had become the size of a warehouse. The staircase seemed to wind down and down for miles, and Kitrin shivered the entire time, as she still wore her white tank top and cargo shorts. It was like walking through an industrial freezer, as designed by M.C. Escher.

The knocking had become unbearably loud—it seemed as if someone with an iron fist was pounding away mercilessly on the wood. She was honestly surprised that the door hadn't just shattered into a thousand pieces under the pressure. But she remembered Shannon's warning, and contented herself with peeking out the front window.

Ordinarily, the view from her grandfather's house was beautiful. She could see the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and the bright blue waters of the San Francisco Bay. But now, she could see nothing but swarms of locusts, blotting out the sun. Black, brown and yellow, with bulging compound eyes and waving feelers, they buzzed everywhere, crowding up against the glass so she saw nothing but a clicking, glittering mass of crooked legs, wings, thoraxes, and exoskeletons. And they all stared at her as the pounding continued, so loud she thought that her eardrums would break.

Despite herself, she started to scream.

Even when she woke up, she couldn't stop. When she was restrained and injected with a drug to knock her out, it was a relief to be able to finally sink back into a dreamless sleep, untroubled by locusts or whoever was knocking at her door…

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

And with that, he removed himself from her presence.

He had succeeded, he knew. This would suffice as his introduction. He was sure that her perception of him, locked in her inaccessible dream world, had not been pleasant.

Satisfied for the moment, he allowed himself to relax into his chair, letting his hands rest upon the upholstered arms. From where he sat in his observational tower, he watched the lights of the vast cityscape beneath him. Even at night, the traffic buzzed about him like a golden swarm of insects, ever constant, never ceasing, flying about the gleaming towers of durasteel and permacrete like flies around a honeycomb.

_Flies_, he thought, with some contempt. What was this planet, but filled with nothing but locusts and flies?

Perhaps that was what she had seen; there was no way for him to know at the moment. For now, this was the closest he could come to her. He didn't know why, just yet, but this woman was as immune to the Force as the Ysalamir lizards of Myrkr. There was something more to this… ability…of hers, but he would not know for sure until she was brought to him.

He mused for a moment on the strangeness of the whole situation. Even his old vizier was nervous when arriving with the news. It seemed that this young human female, who had been found recently on Yavin IV and was even now imprisoned on the last Star Destroyer patrolling the system, had in her possession a hard-copy photo-image of himself. That is, he thought—not entirely without bitterness—the way he had looked before his face had been destroyed, decades before. Of course no one had known who it was at first, but some likely young officer had decided that it would be wise to run the photo-images in the prisoner's possession through the Galactic Imperial Facial Recognition Database to see if anyone could be identified as a known Rebel.

And _he_ had been the result of the search. He actually chuckled at that. Never let it be said that he lacked a sense of humor. He found the whims of the Force quite amusing sometimes.

Apparently the young woman was a "barbarian"—at least in the words of the Star Destroyer's captain—and could not speak a word of Basic, or even one of the six million known languages throughout the galaxy. The rest of her belongings had been of a primitive technological cast, the likes of which hadn't been seen in civilized systems for centuries, if not millennia. And the fact that she had been discovered in a remote area of Yavin IV months after those treacherous Rebels had destroyed his Death Star? Surely that could not be a coincidence. He did not believe in coincidences.

It was all certainly very puzzling. But he had sent for her; his questions would be answered soon enough.

The Emperor smiled.


	4. Chapter 4

IV.

Kitrin stared at the white ceiling above her. What day was it? There were no days. Except for the times that Señor Robot brought her more goo or chalky drinks, or emptied her bedpan, nothing ever changed in this windowless white room. She didn't even have anything to write with, to mark down how long she had been here.

_God, I need a cigarette,_ she thought.

But there were no cigarettes. There weren't any books, TV, games, or Web access, if such things even existed here. There was only the occasional injection of some unknown drug to help her sleep. Her leg seemed to be healing, though. More and more she was actually able to sit up in bed. Whatever that blue goop was inside the compresses, it seemed be working miraculously fast.

She didn't dream of locusts again, at least. That was a blessing.

Soon after that horrible dream, Captain Unfriendly had showed up with one of the photos she kept in her wallet, the one of her mother and grandfather. They were at Big Sur at the time; they were wind-blown and wearing parkas, and they were both smiling. It was taken back in 1991, the year she'd been born. Mom had looked so young and cute, and Grandpa's hair was brown, his big chrome dome-like forehead somewhat less obvious than it was now. It was a pretty innocuous-looking snapshot—it was the only one she could find where the two of them looked happy. She had no idea why Unfriendly would find it so interesting.

But he did. Apparently he found it very interesting, as he kept poking at her grandfather and asking questions. Of course, she didn't understand him, but she could see that he was tense—even a little afraid, although he was clearly trying to hide it.

Which honestly scared her, more than a little.

Her one entertainment, aside from watching Señor Robot, was listening to her neighbor in the other room—the one she pictured as Rupert Friend. At first she was surprised that she'd been put into a room where she could overhear someone no doubt more important than herself, but perhaps her room wasn't originally intended for prisoners. She also remembered Uncle David's tales of military "intelligence"—never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, he was always fond of saying. Perhaps it was just a stupid oversight on the architect's part. She didn't mind it though, since she could listen on and off to Rupert's lovely distinguished voice, talking to doctors or various visitors or whomever.

Unfortunately for her, Rupert had actually been pretty quiet for the past few hours. She stared at the vent. _Say something, Rupert. I'm bored. It's going to be several more hours until I get my mid-day goo. _

But just as she thought this, the door flew open and Señor Robot entered.

"You're early, _señor_," Kitrin said good-naturedly. "What, aren't there any hot lady robots to chat up in the break room?"

Señor Robot replied in his airline attendant voice, and proceeded to cut off her splint and remove her compresses. He then bathed her leg, which was itchy and dry, but otherwise fine. Kitrin knew she should be astonished by the fact that it had healed so cleanly and fast—the pain of the break had been so agonizing, she knew that it must have fractured in several places. But what about this new world was normal? She'd barely been anywhere, and she'd already seen spaceships and robot nurses. They probably flew around on rocket packs and had zapguns.

"Wow, that blue goop of yours is awesome." Kitrin sat up, flexing her newly healed leg. "I can't tell you how much people would love it back home. People would save a fortune on health care!"

Although Señor Robot couldn't smile, he nodded his head, as if he could tell how pleased she was. As she was stretching—feeling better for the first time in days—who should storm in but Captain Unfriendly, accompanied by another man in a melon-shaped black helmet and matching jumpsuit, with an odd starburst logo on his sleeve. His face blank, the helmeted sidekick placed a perfectly folded pile of clothes on her bed. With the same air one would use for a retarded child, Unfriendly pointed to the clothes, then pointed to her, gesturing for her to put them on. He then turned about-face and marched out of the room, the door silently shutting again.

_Well, thank _you, Kitrin thoughtas she inspected the clothes. She'd been given an oversized sleeveless gray tunic and an equally shapeless pair of trousers, made of some kind of acrylic burlap. How attractive. Although her underwear had vanished into the ether, there were a pair of skivvies here made of less coarse material. There were even shoes, gray slipper-like boots that must have been this world's equivalent of the prison-issue Vans back home.

Even though her leg was stiff, she changed as quickly as she could. Her stomach twisted. What did this all mean? Now that her leg was healed, did that mean that the torture could now begin? Or was there some other fate in store for her?

A minute later, Unfriendly returned and snapped a pair of handcuffs on her. They were made out of a weirdly slick metal that didn't feel like anything she'd ever touched back on Earth. Accompanied by the helmeted sidekick and flanked by the guards in white armor, Kitrin was then marched out of her sickroom, without even a chance to say good-bye to Señor Robot.

On the way out, she glanced past the guards into an open doorway. It was another sickroom, but larger and more luxurious than hers—there was even a window on the far side of the room, although it must have been night, since it was dark outside. A man lay there on the bed, wearing a white kimono-type robe. _Rupert_, she thought. She would know him anywhere.

He didn't really look that much like Rupert Friend, of course. But he looked very much like his voice. He was in his early forties, with dark blond hair, and a pale, sternly handsome face with an aquiline nose and high cheekbones. As she stopped to stare at him, he sat up in bed, looking back at her coldly and intently. One of the guards pushed her so hard she almost fell, snapping something at her with a mechanically distorted voice.

_Well, I guess I'll never know his name now,_ Kitrin thought with a flash of regret—but she guessed she had bigger things to worry about.

As she walked along, she found herself marveling at her surroundings. The hallways were endless, teeming with white men in vaguely fascistic uniforms. She saw black ones, like the one Unfriendly wore, and men in jumpsuits and helmets, like the sidekick, and more men in white armor like her guards, but a lot of the men she saw seemed to wear a hundred variations of gray, olive-gray or olive-green. She boggled at the sheer quantity of jodhpurs, funny caps, black gloves and knee-high shiny black boots. And more Chiclet badges than she could shake a stick at.

As for the scenery, it was uniformly gray but sleek, with broad, shallow staircases, corridors paved with black metalwork, large polygonal doors decorated with lighted chevrons, and white and blue bars and roundels glowing everywhere she looked. It was cold, super-futuristic and overwhelmingly industrial, but there was something mesmerizing about it. She felt the rumbling of thousands of engines beneath her. This place, thought Kitrin, seemed as big as a small city. What kind of military base was it?

She was taken into an eerily silent elevator, which went up, and up. She wondered if she was being brought to see someone—or something—important.

When the lift opened, she stepped out and gasped.

She wasn't on a military base.

Amazed, Kitrin gazed about her. Like on Star Trek, it seemed that she stood on the bridge of an honest-to-God spaceship, but there was no Captain Kirk that she could see. There wasn't even a Buck Rogers. The room, projecting outwards like a bay window, was surrounded by trapezoidal windows on three sides, which created an astonishing panorama where she could see the massive triangular ship spreading out before her, far out into the starry void. Beyond it was a small moon, green as jade, orbiting about a vast gas giant whose coral and vermilion clouds made for a startling contrast. It wasn't a matte painting or CGI. The images were as crystal clear as if she looked through the Hubble telescope.

She would have pinched herself, if her hands weren't bound. Was that green moon the jungle planet where she had found herself? And had she been taken up here by that little three-winged UFO thingy?

_Jesus, nothing in this crazy place would surprise me,_ she thought. _My goodness, Toto, it seems that the tornado has blown me away to the land of the Space Nazis!_

Apparently she was the only one to find this setting strange, though. Everyone else was treating it like it was just another day at the office. Recessed pits were set away from the windows, where crewmen worked at computers and consoles, while above were walkways where more important-looking men in olive-gray strutted around. _Maybe they're comparing the fit of their jodhpurs, _she thought. Some of the men were fairly attractive, although the way they all kept glancing at her with contempt, distaste or trepidation, like they half-expected her to start foaming at the mouth, wasn't very reassuring.

_Hell, maybe I should oblige them by acting out an epileptic fit._ Something told her that she really wouldn't want to experience this world's version of an insane asylum. It would probably make her little room in the sick bay seem like the Hilton.

As Kitrin waited there in the middle of the bridge, surrounded by the guards, she began to sense something. At least—she thought she could sense something. She wasn't sure if she was actually experiencing it, or if she had gone into sensory overload and her brain was no longer functioning normally. But it was the strangest feeling, as if she stood in a half-finished skyscraper and she could feel the vibrations of far-off construction. The air seemed to be whistling past her ears…

But her earlier hunch was right. That someone-or-something-important had just arrived. Kitrin's jaw dropped.

_Holy fuck,_ she thought, _who is this creepy weirdo?_

Striding toward her, with a floor-length black cape billowing out behind him, was an immensely tall man whose face was nothing but a domed black helmet with locust-like eyes and a grill for a mouth. All the while, he breathed laboriously like someone on life support. In fact, she wasn't even sure if he was a man, a cyborg, or what. Every inch of him was encased in some kind of black fabric or metal, from his robe, sleeves, breeches, and heavy-duty gloves, to the lighted console on his chest. He even wore a gorget and some kind of modified codpiece, which would have looked ridiculous on someone else—but not him. He made Ming the Merciless look like a Boy Scout.

Mr. Black turned to Captain Unfriendly and said something, in a deep, booming, mechanically processed voice. Unfriendly responded with a bow, murmuring as he gestured to her, as if saying: "Here is your prisoner, my lord."

Kitrin gulped as Mr. Black turned his skull-insect mask in her general direction. Rumbling authoritatively, he pointed at her face.

_Does he want me to respond?_ she wondered. She knew she should be more frightened, but everything was so freakishly unreal she felt as if she was tripping on acid.

Mr. Black said something to her again, sounding impatient. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the color draining from Unfriendly's face.

_Oh Christ,_ she thought,_ I really should say something_. Erm… "I'm sorry, sir," she said, lowering her eyes. "I can't understand you."

In fact, it had become increasingly difficult for her to think—the vibrations she had sensed earlier had grown more insistent, like a swarm of angry wasps was buzzing around her. If she closed her eyes, she wondered if she could see them, sparking around her like fireflies. It made her feel a bit ill. She wished she could make them go away. _Go away, _she thought. _Go away, damn it!_

Astonishingly enough, at that very moment Mr. Black staggered back a little. A nervous olive-gray officer with more Chiclets on his chest than anyone else stepped forward, bowing, and asked him a question. Mr. Black responded by pointing at her again. Ominously, he made some sort of definitive statement… no doubt pronouncing her fate.

_Oh God,_ thought Kitrin, _I'm done for. I'm going to be taken to the space guillotine._

She almost expected to hear someone yell "off with her head!" as Unfriendly and the guards hustled her back into the elevator. She was then taken down again, possibly a thousand levels (to the dungeon, she thought) but instead, after an interminable amount of time of walking about, she arrived at a docking area.

At least it would look more like a docking area if there wasn't a big empty window into the black void of space, bordered by lights. _How does that even work?_ she wondered. _Shouldn't we all be tumbling off into the vacuum? Oh Christ, I'm just not going to think about this any more, or I'll go crazy!_ Two smaller ships waited there—they were the same inverted Y design as the one she first saw back in the jungle. The guards passed her off to more guards in white, and—as a ramp descended amidst steam—she was taken onto one, still accompanied by her old friend, Captain Unfriendly.

Unfriendly definitely did not look happy, though. As she was seated back in the passenger area, still in cuffs, he threw her a venomous glance as he walked towards the cockpit. Clearly, coming with her had not been in his original plans. She could almost feel sorry for him, but she was still too busy being overwhelmed by…everything.

_That's it, _Kitrin thought, her eyes glazing over. _I'm numb. Comfortably numb. _Unfriendly could turn into Cthulhu, with writhing tentacles, flapping wings and a face of unspeakable horror, and the guards could transform into Cthulhu's loathsome star-spawn, and she wouldn't even be fazed.

What stranger things would happen to her? She just didn't know.

But at least she was still alive.

And maybe… eventually… this whole insane universe would start making sense.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note: I've renamed this fic "Imperial Daughter," since I discovered recently that there is another, older fic entitled "Daughter of the Empire" by Merlyn Gabriel (which I highly recommend). Also, my apologies about the slow update. I was swamped with work in June, and it took forever to write this chapter. Thanks for your patience, and thanks also for the reviews!

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V.

The Imperial Palace was one of the wonders of Coruscant—indeed, out of all the Core Worlds—and within it the Grand Corridor was considered a notable marvel. An artificial chasm of black stone so vast it could swallow a Star Destroyer, it glowed both red and white from the towering window-shafts of ruby transparisteel and the electroluminescent lattices beloved by the Empire's architects. Prism-like Ch'hala trees lined the thoroughfare, their pale jade leaves quivering from the onslaught of the crowds, the diplomats, aristocrats, soldiers, and gawking offworld tourists—each bored or entranced face alternately bleached pale or stained with blood-colored light.

Above it all, on balconies occupied by sophisticated tapcafés, elite customers sipping caf or fine wine gazed down past the pinnacles and pilasters to the throngs below. Many of these beings—Holonet stars, prominent politicians, merchant princes and the occasional gangster kingpin—were quite confident that their credits and station had guaranteed them the best seat in the house, and their countenances were wreathed with the blissfully arrogant smiles of the privileged.

But there was someone else who looked down on them. Standing on the very highest balcony, near the vast barrel-vaulted ceiling, he leaned over the railing, observing them like so many insects, swarming amidst architecture of his own devising.

"If you please, your Majesty…"

The voice of his Director of Intelligence, usually so confident and direct, faltered slightly. The Emperor didn't have to turn around to sense the excitement and nervousness that coursed through her. He could read her so easily—she was much more comfortable lurking in the rear of the balcony, cloaked in shadow. She could not understand why he stood so easily near the railing; she was afraid on his behalf, worried that someone might see them.

He chuckled. "My dear Director, we are too high up for even the most sharp-eyed café patron to notice us. Come stand by me. The view is most impressive."

She did not want to, he knew. But she joined him anyway, just as he knew she would. If he so allowed, she would follow him like a tamed vornskr pup.

As she took in the view, he paused a moment to admire her severe, yet beautiful features, and her eyes that were divided between light blue and crimson, almost like the lights in the Corridor below. She controlled herself admirably, but he could tell how thrilled she was to be standing next to him; her emotions visibly pulsed like the leaves on a Ch'halla tree. An apt comparison, he thought, as the beauteous Ch'halla, having being genetically modified to record sound, also served as his spies.

It pleased him that one of his most prized servants should also be fair to look upon. He had always been sensitive to aesthetics; he could never abide ugliness. His withered lips twitched at the irony. Perhaps, once upon a time, he might have even asked a woman like the Director to be his mistress. It had been decades since he had possessed the interest in such a thing, but for a split second he toyed with the idea of removing to a more private place and asking her to divest herself of her uniform, so he might admire her like an antique statue.

"Your Majesty is correct," said the Director huskily. "It is indeed an impressive view." She paused, her finely made if overlarge jaw setting in a way that indicated she wished to discuss business. "Yet if I may be so bold, sire, I wish to ask if— "

Her timing was unfortunate. At that moment his Grand Vizier, Lord Pestage, stepped onto the balcony, his robes sweeping behind him. Pestage was scarcely as handsome as the Director— even at his best he resembled a mummy wrapped in fuchsia curtains— but they had known each other almost forty years, and under such circumstances, expectations of attractiveness could be set aside. As the Vizier bowed, murmuring the usual obeisances, he shot the Director a bland expression. Underneath it seethed hatred; the Emperor could almost taste it. He smiled.

"What is it, old friend?" he inquired in his most solicitous accents, in a way he knew would particularly infuriate the Director, who loathed the Vizier as much as the Vizier loathed her.

"Lord Vader's shuttle has arrived, your Majesty," said the Vizier.

"Very good!" the Emperor replied. He glanced at the Director. Beneath her stoic façade, he could tell she was indignant about the Vizier's intrusion, and wildly curious as to why Vader had returned to Coruscant. Yet he felt no need to enlighten her. For the time being, the fewer people who knew about his interest in this mysterious prisoner from Yavin IV, the better. "I am afraid we must save this matter for another day, madam. If you will excuse us."

"Yes, your Majesty." The Director bowed deeply.

After she departed, the Emperor gestured the Vizier closer. "The prisoner is with Lord Vader, I trust?"

"Safe and sound, your Majesty," said the Vizier. "You will be interested to know that she flew in a separate shuttle."

"Indeed!" The Emperor was tempted to laugh at the idea of his apprentice, the second most powerful man in the Galaxy, being psychically intimidated by a mere slip of a girl. But now, without the distraction of the Vizier and the Director competing for his attention, he could feel her presence. It felt like a distant rushing wind. He was not sure what to think of it, and he did not like feeling unsure.

"Send Lord Vader and the prisoner to my private audience chambers," he commanded. "Do you have the photo-image with you?"

"Yes, sire. I obtained it from Lieutenant Riessel."

"Who is that?" the Emperor snapped.

"The intelligence analysis officer, your Majesty. He was assigned to her on the Star Destroyer _Decimator_, and he has accompanied her here. Shall he be sent back?"

"No." The Emperor tapped his fingers together, thoughtfully.

"Then shall he be terminated, sire?"

A sound suggestion, but Pestage sounded a touch too eager to shuffle the officer off to his execution. No doubt it arose from the officer being Intel, and one of the Director's men. For a moment, the Emperor seriously considered it; he did not like the idea of some non-entity so recently examining his likeness. But on the other hand, the execution would please Pestage too much, and the Emperor did not feel like being overly obliging. The Director found her analysis officers valuable, and she had not displeased him lately. She had been particularly zealous in her given task of chasing down and torturing Rebel spies, and her puppy-like devotion was, as always, pleasing.

"I do not think that is necessary. Make sure he is reassigned to some particularly isolated spot in the Outer Rim." He waved his hand as if brushing away an annoying insect. "Now, if you will, Lord Pestage, send Vader and the girl to my private audience chamber."

"The northern one, your Majesty?"

"Yes, I think that one shall suffice." The Emperor gave Pestage a humorless grin. "The light is better at this time of day, don't you think?" _All the better,_ he thought, _to inspect the image and its owner, when she arrives._

"Indeed, your Majesty." The Vizier bowed, like a puppet.

_They're all puppets_, he thought, contemptuously. They were all so easy to manipulate, they bored him…

Which was perhaps why the Dark Side had sent him this female. The idea of any sentient creature being immune to the Force was unsettling, to say the least… but he almost welcomed the challenge.

He wondered what _she_ would be like.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

When Kitrin was taken off the ship, she was confused, groggy, and completely disoriented. For a minute the sun shining in her eyes blinded her.

After she'd been loaded into the dimly lit bowels of the ship, with no one to talk to and nothing to see, she'd given into her exhaustion and fatigue and nodded off. The next thing she knew, the ship was plunging downward in a way that made her stomach push its way past her lungs and into her throat, like she was on a roller coaster. By some miracle she didn't vomit all over herself.

After the ship landed God knows where, the guards bustled her outside, down the ramp onto some sort of concrete-like material. When she was finally able to see again, she saw that the ship had landed on some kind of circular landing pad, attached to a mountain of a building so huge it almost blocked out this planet's sun.

Kitrin stared about her. Her neck cracked as she looked up at the ominous, mountainous building, a pile of turrets and towers and flying buttresses all constructed out of an olive-green stone; but the scenery around it was more astonishing. Silhouetted against a brazen sky and towering into the stratosphere were a multitude of bizarre skyscrapers that ranged in shape from the Chrysler Building to upside-down test tubes to things that could best be described as mutated mushrooms. The buildings went down forever, miles beneath her; she could see nothing that resembled dirt or greenery. The ground, or what there was of it, seemed to be paved over with gray Legos, which were no doubt just more buildings. Overhead flew thousands upon thousands of ships in criss-crossing skylanes, like something out of _The Fifth Element_.

So, speaking of _The Fifth Element_, was she going to be treated like Milla Jovovich's alien character? Too bad, she thought grimly, there was no Bruce Willis there to save her.

With Captain Unfriendly ahead of her, she was hustled into the mountainous building, where she was taken to a waiting Mr. Black, attended by own fascist lackeys. Mr. Black did not once acknowledge her. But at a growled order, a pale, sweating Captain Unfriendly pulled a metal tube out of a side pocket in his tunic and unlocked her handcuffs by inserting it into an opening. With that, he and her guards were dismissed, and she was then taken away by Mr. Black and his entourage.

Everything about her was so big and impossible, she felt like an ant lost in Versailles. However, these future people had a love of immensity that made Versailles look like a shack in a Tegucigalpa slum. As Kitrin was dragged along, she saw black serrated gothic columns, halls so lofty the ceilings were cloaked in atmospheric haze, mile-high windows glowing like semi-precious stones, arched monumental pylons, and gigantic bas-reliefs covered with hieroglyphics and stylized depictions of combat between fantastically dressed yet frightening-looking creatures. These were so large that the top of her head didn't even reach the ankle of one of these sculpted combatants. It was, as Lovecraft would have said, truly _cyclopean—_it had not been built on a human scale at all—and it horrified her as much as it fascinated her.

Even though the surroundings of this über-palace put the spaceship to shame, this whole experience reminded her of when she was taken from the sickbay to see Mr. Black. _Does this mean,_ she wondered, _that I'm being taken to see Mr. Black's boss? _It seemed only logical. And he had to be the king of the universe, given how big this place was. What in God's name did they want with her?

There were plenty of little robots trundling about, cleaning and polishing the stone and metal and random light fixtures, but she didn't see very many people. Perhaps she was being taken through a back route. She did see a few important-looking dignitaries and officers who glanced at her askance—and then immediately away, as if what she had was catching. She was not sure if it was because she herself looked so uncouth, or if it was Mr. Black's company. That man…alien…cyborg (it was hard to tell what he or it was) seemed to be grimness personified. As he strode through the palace corridors, he never looked once to the right or the left. He moved like the devil's own battleship.

At a word from Mr. Black, the white-armored guards fell away when they arrived at an elevator, guarded by two tall masked guards in red robes, armed with metal pikes. The red guards allowed her and Mr. Black to enter. As the elevator shot up and up—showing no signs of stopping—her stomach began to twist painfully and nauseatingly. Like home, it seemed that the most important folks here preferred to live on top of their skyscrapers. She knew that _he—_whoever _he_ was—would be waiting there for her, when the lift doors finally opened.

When the doors whished open, Mr. Black swept before her, into what looked to be this universe's version of a deluxe penthouse.

Everything was decorated in tasteful claret, with the odd abstract statue and a full complement of sleek chrome furniture. Amber light bathed the room, as the farthest wall was nothing but a curving sheet of glass, revealing another amazing view of skyscrapers and flying ships as far as the eye could see. In the middle of it all was a single swiveling chair with its back to them.

And she felt the same vibrations and sense of wind whistling past her ears as when she met Mr. Black back on the spaceship, except it felt even more pitched…

_There's somebody in that chair,_ Kitrin thought, _and any moment now, he's going to turn around like a villain in a James Bond movie._

She wasn't disappointed. But the man sitting there wasn't a supervillain stroking a white cat. Instead, it was an ancient cowled monk, robed in black, with a hood pulled halfway down his face.

This was just too weird. Was the monk the guy in charge? Was _he _the king of the universe?

As strange as it seemed, it seemed the answer was yes. The feeling of power around him was palpable. Even Mr. Black bowed on one knee, rumbling something submissively. She was still standing there, feeling stupid, when the monk extended one clawed white hand and gestured for her to come closer, giving her a ghastly smile which she imagined was supposed to be reassuring. _Come into my web, said the spider to the fly_, she thought. But what else was she to do?

As she approached the monk, she felt her jaw drop. No wonder he had the hood pulled down so far—he was quite possibly the ugliest man she had ever seen. He looked like a zombie or a mummified corpse, with skin that was a leprous, unhealthy white, and red-rimmed, bright orange-yellow eyes that were sunk deep under ridged mounds of brows. He had rotting teeth and fingernails like yellowed talons. But for all that, there was something eerily familiar about him…

Kitrin didn't want to think what that could be. Repressing a shudder, she pasted a neutral expression on her face, praying inwardly all the while that her revulsion hadn't been too obvious. Her mom always said she wore her heart on her sleeve, and although some of her boyfriends thought it was cute, there were many times when she really wished she could hide her feelings. Like now. _Oh, God, _she thought desperately, _please, please don't let me be tortured and killed—please, please— _

Brother Zombie continued to smile—now she was pretty sure he meant to intimidate, not to reassure—but after a minute the expression froze, and he shifted slightly in his seat. He spoke to her, his voice hoarse, cultured, but vaguely reptilian.

He picked up a photo from a nearby side table. It was _hers_, the one from her wallet, the one of her mother and grandfather at Big Sur. What could he possibly—

He poked at the photo, at Isaac Lang, and gestured to himself.

At that, Kitrin was forced to carefully examine the decaying face before her. As her gaze flickered back and forth between the photograph and Brother Zombie, she almost passed out in shock.

Could it be him? Was it really Grandpa's features underneath all that? Was this creepy, disgusting monk some Bizarro World version of her grandfather? She started to tremble.

And she could swear she heard the sound of a swarm of locusts, getting closer and closer...

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Emperor was proud of his Sith training, and the breadth and depth of his knowledge of the Force, but nothing had prepared him for this young woman.

The photo-image, printed by some primitive process on a kind of paper stock that been obsolete for thousands of years, had been strange enough. Originally, it had been sent to him through his own private holonet channel. He had thought it had looked unsettling before, but that was before he had the chance to hold it with his own two hands.

Before Vader and the prisoner had entered, he had stared for a long time at the man who had looked just like him—or _was_ him, at least according to the Imperial Facial Recognition Database. This man had his arm around a young woman who was possibly his daughter, and they were both smiling quite genuinely and without affectation. There was nothing about it that spoke of state, of politics, of formality. Except for the peculiar dress, this man who shared his face could have been any middle-aged, middle-class merchant from Darsie or some other obscure world.

In fact, the face of the young woman in the image had been entered into the database as well; but the closest match was a middle-aged housewife from the Dolomar Sector who had never left her own planet, and had not so much as a parking ticket to her name. He had still been asked if he wished to bring the woman into custody, but he had dismissed the idea. Not only had she not been an exact match—as he had been with this unknown man—but he instinctively knew that she had no connection with this mystery.

The Emperor continued to examine the image. This doppleganger of his could have been any one of trillions of humans, from any one of millions of worlds in the galaxy. He could not understand it. It was so… disgustingly common, and it filled him with so much loathing that he was overwhelmed with the sudden irrational desire to destroy the picture. Yet with great effort, he restrained himself. Ordinarily, he kept his brain and corresponding emotional states as organized, compartmentalized, and contained as the holobooks in the old Jedi Archives, and the mere fact that these feelings were springing up, uncalled for, disturbed him. He also felt a niggling sensation of what might have been fear.

With his back to the door and hidden by the large curving shell of the chair, he grimaced. When he was young, and regularly subject to the tender mercies of his master, Darth Plagueis, fear had not been such an uncommon emotion. Yet that had been a half century ago, and more. He had been a child then, a creeping worm that had since metamorphosed into the most powerful Sith lord in recorded history. The idea of being afraid now was such an exotic sensation, he wondered perhaps if he should savor such an emotion, like a particularly fine vintage of Alderaanian wine.

And then _she _had entered.

As he swiveled about to stare at her, he could see at once why Vader had insisted on flying in a different shuttle. In all the decades of his existence, he had never experienced the like.

The girl was ordinary enough, grubby and frightened, gaping like a peasant, and without the sense to even bow as Vader kneeled before him. But if he closed his eyes, he could _see _her—or rather, the absence of her. It was as if a hole had been punched into the fabric of the universe. He had suspected her to be the human equivalent of one of the Force-neutralizing Ysalamir or a taozin, but the truth was much more disturbing. Her presence felt like a cold wind from another plane. She was some kind of monstrous anomaly, someone utterly closed off to the Force, down to the very cells in her body. She was nothingness; she was a singularity; she was a void. Her aura was so shocking—even painful—it took all of his concentration to remain calm.

She seemed equally disturbed by him, although her emotions showed as openly on her face as if she were a child. He could tell she found him repulsive, and her disgust filled him with a momentary rage. Perhaps this other version of himself, from the Forceless universe that this girl originally inhabited, had the good fortune to keep his original appearance, but he had not. After all, he was only the servant of the Dark Side, and for his dedicated service, the Dark Side had rewarded him with unlimited power. What need did he have for a comely appearance now? He had surpassed the need for such paltry and trivial things—

Ordinarily he would have blasted someone as foolish as this to death on the spot, but he didn't want to see what effect the Force would have on such a singular anomaly as this. No doubt a blaster or lightsaber would be enough to silence her, but he refused to countenance the idea of destroying something so unique. The Force had brought her to him for a reason, after all.

_This barbarian can be useful to you,_ he told himself once he had regained his composure. He wondered fleetingly what Plagueis would make of such a creature. Since he could not read her mind, her very transparency would serve his purpose. When he revealed the flat-image to her, he was pleased to see her horror, especially when he pointed to the smiling man, and then to himself. For a primitive savage, she was not entirely stupid. Perhaps there was hope for her yet.

As he placed the photo-image on a side table, he assessed her carefully.

She was perhaps a few standard years from thirty, and although she was wan, ill-smelling, and poorly dressed in a detention uniform, she was undeniably pretty, even with arms that were tattooed from the shoulders to the wrists with elaborate multicolored pictures that would be outré on an Outer Rim bounty hunter. With her black hair, dark eyes, fine features and fair if sunburned skin, she had the look of a high-born Nabooan maiden. If he had married a suitable woman on Naboo, and had procreated as many had expected him to, he might have indeed sired someone like this. She even bore some resemblance to him, with her prominent nose and small, rounded chin with a hint of a cleft. Bathed and dressed appropriately, she might actually be presentable.

"Does she please you, my master?" Vader asked.

"You have done well, Lord Vader," the Emperor replied. As he pressed a button in the arm of his chair to summon Pestage, a plan began to formulate in his mind. In his hands, this girl could be clay… plucked from obscurity, he could shape her into whatever form he wished. He would have to move slowly and carefully, but through training, he could help her discover the full extent of her powers.

Why, she could be the daughter he had never had. He smirked at the thought.

"You have done very well indeed."


End file.
